Frost vs Luck
by BionicVampireDragonGuardian1
Summary: The third book in the series that began with Jack's Worst Nightmare. MUST be read as the third, CAN'T stand alone. Please R&R. Okay, now on to the actual summary... What happens when Jaquie Luck stumbles upon Jack Frost and the others. Will she realize who she is? Will Jack admit that she is who she claims to be? Or the bond of family not that strong? Co-author is 7ShadowsUnleashed
1. Burgess, Pennsylvania, 2014

**Burgess, Pennsylvania, 2014**

**Jack's POV**

As I fly through Burgess, making sure that every inch of ground is covered in snow. It is three days before Christmas. I fly over to the pond, since Jaime is spending Christmas in Colorado. As I near the pond I see a girl, that looks my age. She has multi colored hair that's pulled back in a braid. A brown cloak that goes down to her mid thigh, tattered at the end. Long brown pants, like mine, tattered by her mid calf. She isn't wearing shoes. I land near her, she doesn't twitch. Not that I expected her to, she's 16. I may have TONS of believers, but none that are older than Jaime and his friends who are all only 12. She just stands there, as if she's zoning out. I take a chance and talk to see if she can hear me. "Excuse me." I say stating myself, she spins around, as she does she looks **at** me. She's wearing an off white long sleeve shirt with a mini vest. She looks exactly like Jaquie did when she fell into the pond._ Could she be?- No!_

"You can see me?!" I ask in shock, though she said something too. "I'm sorry... I missed what you said." That's when I see it, her eyes are blood red and filled with hate. That's when I recognize her Jaquie Luck. "Jaquie?" I ask I shock, I almost feel as though I'm talking to my sister as I talk to her.

"What did you do?" She demands, her crimson colored eyes never leaving my ice blue ones. "What did you do to deserve to be a Guardian?"

"Is that what this is about?" I ask, shocked, laughing lightly.

"It's not funny, Frost." She says, spitting my name out like it's a curse. I somber up immediately by the sound of her voice. It sounds like my sister.

"Is that what this is really about?" I ask again, dead serious.

"Yes." She replies shortly, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Jaquie... I'm sorry." I say, after a slight silence. Her eyes immediately change from blood red to a greenish color.

"What?" She asks confused.

"I'm sorry that you're stupid enough to hate me just because I'm a Guardian." Her emotions immediately change from confusion back to hatred. The only reason I could tell was because of her eye color change. Except one eye is blue and the other is blood red.

"You're going to pay, Frost." She spats. She immediately breaks into a run. Coming towards me at high speed. I bring my staff back so I can hit her, however just as it's about to bash in her skull she ducks. Then proceeds to uppercut me in the gut. Making me double over in pain.

"Lucky shot." I mutter.

"Of course it was, I'm Jaquie Luck." She says smiling, all her anger and rage seems to have disappeared. Or so I thought...

* * *

**Jaquie's eye**** colors:**

**Red- Anger**

****Blood Red- Hatred****

****Orange- Frustration****

******Yellow- Calm******

**Green- Confusion**

****Blue- Sadness****

****Indigo- Nervousness****

**Violet- Scared**

**Multi- No emotions present**

**If I indicate that one eye is one color and the other eye is another, it shows conflicting emotion.**


	2. One Sided Fight

**Hey, my people, I am back. Sorry for the long time between updates... But this is prior to my deadline of tonight (if you understand this, I'm STILL breathing. Haha.). Anyway... Onward!**

* * *

**Jaquie's eye**** colors:**

**Red- Anger**

****Blood Red- Hatred****

****Orange- Frustration****

******Yellow- Calm******

**Green- Confusion**

****Blue- Sadness****

****Indigo- Nervousness****

**Violet- Scared**

**Multi- No emotions present**

**If I indicate that one eye is one color and the other eye is another, it shows conflicting emotion.**

***More colors may be added as needed.***

* * *

_*__"You're going to pay, Frost." She spats. She immediately breaks into a run. Coming towards me at high speed. I bring my staff back so I can hit her, however just as it's about to bash in her skull she ducks. Then proceeds to uppercut me in the gut. Making me double over in pain._

_"Lucky shot." I mutter._

_"Of course it was, I'm Jaquie Luck." She says smiling, all her anger and rage seems to have disappeared. Or so I thought...*_

* * *

**Jack's POV **

When I think that she's done with me, I feel her lift me up by the shoulders and throw me hard into the lower branches of a tree. The snap echoes across the clearing and I feel something inside of me break._ Was that my spine,_ my body certainly hurt enough,_ or was that the tree? _I wonder.

One deep breath tells me that 'neither' is the correct answer. I feel like I am drowning again, this time in my own blood dripping through tiny holes left behind when fragments of my ribs were forced through my lungs.

The girl before me, her multi-colored hair whipping around her head in the wind, levitates a few meters off the ground and before diving straight towards me. As I am falling to the ground, in too much pain to fly, she catches me. For a second I think I am in the clear, but the foolish hope vanishes in an instant when Jaquie Luck pulls me up by my shoulders and shoves me against the tree a second time.

The force makes me cough: a harsh, liquid-filled sound that makes the girl wrinkle her nose in distaste. I feel blood drip from one corner of my mouth, down my chin, and stain my blue sweatshirt.

Her eyes, once blue on one side and blood-red on the other, have long-since changed, the blue darkening and swimming around her abyssal pupils until it too turns blood-red with hatred, or maybe my fevered mind has claimed my sight. A glance towards the sky and a twist of my neck sends red spots dancing before my eyes and pain shooting through my broken body. I close my eyes, trying to clear my vision, and open them once more to look back into those hate-filled eyes.

They are still red, like drops of blood staining in the snow. If my situation wasn't bad before, it is now. There is nothing worse to fight than an angry guardian, especially the guardian of luck.

And I think mine has just run out.

"What did you do to deserve it?" the girl demands, her voice low. "Hmm? What did you do to deserve it, you stupid Guardian? Do you even deserve to be called that when you can't even beat me?" She snarls, anger palpable.

I remain silent, unsure whether an answer will antagonize or calm her.

"TELL ME!" She shouts, hanging from one of the sturdier short branches and slowly air-walking away.

She spins around, her eyes no longer blood-red but now orange and blue: frustrated and saddened at the same time.

"Please," she begs, sinking slowly to the ground, her head hung low. She was so quiet that I almost didn't hear her.

"Let me down, **then** we'll talk." I bargain. She nods mutely and snaps her fingers. I fall ungracefully to the base of the tree, gasping and spitting up so much blood that I'm on the verge of a shady abyss for a moment before I can collect my fragile consciousness and attempt to push my broken self it its feet. As I stand, I see that she's now standing as well and holding out my staff by its hook. I reach out, hesitant, and take it. "How'd you do that?" I ask.

"Do what?" She asks, confusion showing in her now-green eyes.

"The whole thing where you snapped then I fell." I explain, wiping the blood from my lips with my sleeve. Where I in any other situation I would be disgusted by my predicament, but right now I am glad to be alive.

"Telekinesis," she says quietly. She looks down to the frost-tainted ground, then back to me. "Can you please tell me what you did?"

"When Man in Moon _first_ chose me, it was because I saved someone. A child." I whisper.

"How could you save a child... if they can't touch you?" Jaquie asks.

**Jaquie's POV**

When I asked the question I don't know what answer I wanted, but didn't expect what he told me.

"I was human before this. We all were." He tells me.

"Wh-" I start but am cut off by the sound of shattering glass.

* * *

**the fight scene was written by my personal friend, as well as a brilliantly mad scientist, 7ShadowsUnleashed. **


	3. Luck vs The Guardians

_*"I was human before this. We all were." He tells me._

_"Wh-" I start but am cut off by the sound of shattering glass.*_

* * *

**Still Jaquie's POV**

I spin quickly, seeing the Big Four assembled in their little, yet all-powerful line-up: North, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny [who casts Jack a pretty amused look and winks at me], and the Sandman.

_Crud. I. Am. SO. Dead._ I take a hesitant step away from them, my hands disappearing from their sight.

"Jack!" the Tooth Fairy squeals happily as she hugs him, not even caring as his blood drips onto her iridescent clothes.

"Good to see you too, Tooth." Jack gasps, smiling and wincing through the pain in his chest.

"Good riddance." I mutter half-heartedly, anger building up in my chest. With that thought I snap my fingers and teleport just outside of the pond's immediate sight range. From my vantage point buried in the upper reaches of a tall oak tree, I can see the Big Four crowd around their injured … comrade? Son? Brother? Friend? I cannot decide what relationship the Guardians share because it differs between them: Jack and the Easter Bunny are clearly brothers, as indicated by their teasing, while Jack and Tooth are possibly more than friends. North lords over them with the care of a father.

_Look at them. They're like a family: something that I never had and never will._

The sappy greetings continue and with each word and each affectionate pat on the shoulder, my anger stews. When North gathers Jack in a hug, lifting the small Guardian off of the ground and holding his fragile body so his snowy head is propped on the man's broad shoulder, I cannot contain it any more: I snap.

Teleporting past North, I rip the frail boy from his arms. Before he can make a move to stop me, I have landed on the opposite side of the pond, my hands buried in Jack's hair as I hold his sagging body straight. Where he anyone but a Guardian, I would feel pity for him.

There is no pity here though, just anger: my anger and that of the Big Four on the other side of the pond.

The Big Four have matching looks of surprise and fear in their eyes. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that my eyes are blood-red.

"What are you doing?" the Tooth Fairy asks.

"Yea' sheila," the Easter Bunny points at me with one furry hand. "You had your fun with Jack, and I agree that he needed to be knocked down a few pegs, but now what are you doing?"

"I'm only giving him what he deserves," I retort. My anger is strong enough to bring a kitchen knife flying from the nearest house a few kilometres away right to my hand. I grab it by the hilt and turn it under the moonlight so the Guardians can see the light shine on the wicked-sharp blade. I only let them see it, all seven inches of cold, hard steel, for a second before I plunge it into Jack Frost's mangled chest. He twitches, stiffening beneath my hands, then falls from the blade to the ground with a dull thump.

The Guardians stare from me to the knife in my hand, then to the blue, grey, and wet-gleaming red shape on the ground, transfixed. I can see the thought slowly permeating the bogged-down pathways of their minds. Any minute now they would realise what had happened and come for me.

The Tooth Fairy is the first to comprehend. "Jack!" she screams, flying across the pool and landing beside him without even a thought for me and my knife towering above her. I am debating between stabbing her or not when the Easter Bunny comes up behind me.

"Look here and look hard, sheila." I gulp and slowly turn towards him.

Already I can guess his intentions: I am not surprised when his fist comes flying towards my face. Even so, I barely have time to dodge the blow, bringing the kitchen knife blade-up and slicing down into the flesh, cartilage, and tendons composing his knuckles. He screams and falls back, holding his mangled hand, only for North to take his place, fencing foils already drawn in anticipation for my single kitchen knife, which suddenly feels inadequate against such proud tools.

"Vill you be alvight, Bunny?" the behemoth of a man shouts.

"Yea' I'll be fine." The rabbit replies, flexing two of his fingers because the other three are not going anywhere, "It's just a flesh wound."

I don't know who he thinks he's kidding, but it definitely cannot be North.

North's left foil comes across in a swooping arc, which I respond to by teleporting behind him, only to be countered by his right foil coming back.

The man made a foolish mistake, leaving his left side the perfect opening for me. I duck under the massive cut and teleport to his left side, driving my knife under his arm only for something dry and grainy to pour from the wound. Sand?

"The Sandman ..." I growl, wrenching my knife from the pile of golden-white dust and cursing under my breath. The North look-alike had already dissolved and now travelled towards Tooth, who cradled Jack's prone body tight against her chest as tears streamed down her face. The sand began wrapping itself around the pair, forming a sort of basket beneath them, and began carrying them across the frozen pond. I started after the sand-wicker basket only to jump back at the subtle creak of ice starting to crack under my weight.

_This is off, _I thought. The pond had always been frozen, the ice surviving centuries of summer heat and trees without so much as a scratch on its crystalline surface.

_Not the time to wonder, _my instinct muttered.

_Well, aren't we talkative now?_

_Shut up,_ I could picture my instinct leaning against a wall with its arms crossed.

I felt wind rush past my ear, snapping my attention back to the battle at hand as North, the real flesh-and-blood edition, tried to disarm me with a well-placed strike from his fencing foil. Had I not been a teleporter, the technique might have worked, but the behemoth was outmatched in speed and his move only served to unbalance him enough for me to dodge under his guard and keep running right past him ...

… causing him to take a bathtub's worth of the Sandman's sand right to the chest. The force of the attack sent him flying into the pond with a muted crash as he smashed through the thin layer of ice and into the frigid water.

While it would have been fun to watch behemoth crawl out like a drenched rat, I figured now was a good time to leave. It looked like the Easter Bunny had managed to obtain bandages from Heaven-knows where and put his hand back together, and North's annoyed shouts carried through the air behind to me. The Sandman made the air light up like Yuletide.

Three angry Guardians fuelled by rage, some degree of pain, and enough wielding enough combined power to squash me flat. I could certainly take them one at a time, but three at once? You'd have to be crazy to even try.

Nope, I was out of there so fast that, while Guardians were still staring at the spot I had stood not two seconds ago, I was holed up on the roof of my favourite New York City skyscraper, wondering if I could luck myself into an abandoned rich man's wallet.

**Jack**

I could barely feel Tooth's arms around me for a moment, then all I could feel was the blackness. It was so cool and soft, like a welcoming snowfall. I wanted to be there, lying in the snow and looking up at Man in the Moon, but instead I was here in the abyssal grey swirling with black and white with a memory of Tooth's arms. _When had she let me go? _I wondered, then I remembered that I had been the one to let go and sink into this ethereal world.

_No chance of going back now_.

I took a step forward, my staff clasped in one hand and the other held tight to my chest for balance. I did not even stop to wonder when I had recovered my staff. I figured it was just there, following me as it had all of those nights ago when I had awoken, and even before that, when I had saved my little sister, Emma, from the thin ice covering our back pond all of those years ago.

I tried not to think of what Tooth must be feeling. If I had to leave her and the others … I did not know what to think.

I moved to step forward, a cool breeze blowing over my face, beckoning me to wherever I would go.

Whatever lay beyond the blackness.

* * *

**If you want to kill someone... not me. Go after my Beta Reader, 7ShadowsUnleashed. Though, to be truthful this what I was planning on going for.**


	4. The Moon's Shadows

Chapter 4: The Moon's Shadows

There were shadows where they shouldn't be: shadows floating where they was nothing to cast them. A single large shadow across the ground, reflected across the sky. Every other shadow felt pale and fragile in comparison.

The shadow's master could not touch the earth, could not change it, but it could create others to touch the earth in its place. It called these 'others' its "Guardians."

Now it seemed that a Guardian's fate was hung in the balance.

The moon hung in the sky, watching quietly as his own fought themselves.

.:.

"To zee sleigh!" North called.

The Guardians moved fast, gathering a few stray items they had dropped during the scuffle: a long tree branch shaped like a letter "Y," a boomerang, a small golden box lying on its side, a small brown-eyed boy painted on its lid, and depositing them in the sleigh. They then cleared a space for their most precious charge: one of their own, wrapped in sand and warm arms.

Time seemed slow, each second feeling a minute too long, each minute feeling like an hour, each snap of a stick sending ice through the Guardians' bones. Each sound reminded them of the battle: ice shattering, bones breaking, the water lapping at the banks, and the wet shp of a knife burying itself in a boy's side, and now they waited for Tooth to scream.

They waited for Jack to die. The thought sickened them.

Therefore, each moment felt too long, as it always does when one waits for something.

The Sandman slowly moved his hands like a conductor and the sand basket sank into the sleigh, slowly like a skybound feather falling to Earth. For a moment the boy seemed at peace with the world, despite his terrible wounds. As they continued to The Pole, the Guardians continued to look forward, then back at the 'immortal' teen. They did it purely to save their sanity, or what little they had left after the events that had transpired.

Finally, reality seemed to hit The Cossack. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a snow globe. Bunny kept his mouth shut for once. As The Cossack looked back at the boy he considered a son, he threw the globe. As the circling stopped he glanced back, to make sure that Jack was still okay. To his relief, the boy appeared to be.

The reindeer landed in record time, seeming to sense their master's need for urgency. Though, they didn't do it a gently as The Big Four could've hoped for, but it would have to do.

The Cossack quickly grabbed the snow haired teen and took off towards The Workshop. As soon as the door opened, a swarm of Yetis immediately rush to help. Three of them took Bunny to the infirmary to see if they could fix his hand, while the remaining Yetis followed the large Cossack and the unconscious teenage winter sprite into the infirmary. The large wooden doors opened to a stark white room with three hospital beds. Bunny was currently occupying one of the low cots as one of the yetis tried to sew his three fingers back together. North went straight to the first bed, given already Bunny occupied the second, and set down Jack as gently as he could. The yetis instantly went to work trying to save the youngest Guardian.

IVs were hooked up to the teen, filling his veins with fluids and medicines. Then the unlikely medics removed his blue hoodie along with the with tee-shirt he had on underneath. Phil, the yeti who North trusted with the boy, handed it off to another, who went off to a different room, probably to try to stitch it up and wash the blood out. Now that cloth no longer covered the wound, they could see the true damage Jaquie Luck caused to the young Guardian. As North looked over the boy, who he considered a son, he realised how lucky Jack was.

By a stroke of fate, Jaquie had bypassed all of the Guardian's organs. Instead, she had stabbed him in the small cavity located just below the sternum, plunging the knife between his diaphragm and his lungs. The only problem they would face would be that Jack could very easily bleed out, or that's what they thought ...

As The Cossack went to check on Bunny, there was a long tone being held instead of the continuous, steady beeping that represented Jack's heartbeat. North turned, not quite sure what the sound meant. As he turned back to Jack, the Yetis quickly surrounded him, the duo that had been working on Bunny quickly switched their attention to Jack. The only thing Bunny did was raise an eyebrow. North assumed it wasn't because the Yetis moved to attend to Jack. Tooth, who had been in another part of the workshop, flew in at top speed with Sandy following close behind. However, once they heard the high pitch tone, which North was starting to find rather annoying, they stopped short.

"His ribs are shattered, we need to reset them, then tend to the holes in his lungs." Phil told the other Yetis, who quickly began setting his ribs.

"Get the defibrillator!" another Yeti commanded. That was when North figured it out. He stumbled back to join his fellow Guardians, blinking like an owl faced with a strobe light.

He was helpless, he realised: there was nothing he could do but hope that Jack would pull through.

.:.

The grey mist felt solid beneath his feet and slippery, like he was laying on a glass floor. Glass ... ice … it was no matter: he was still trapped in this cold, dead world.

Yes, the Guardian of ice and snow felt the cold around him. It was a scary thought.

_How cold is this place?_ Jack wondered, pushing himself to his feet._ I need to get out of here._

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"Who's there?" Jack called, his voice bouncing off of the shifting mist.

"You would not know me so my name does not matter to you."

"For my sanity's sake, let's say that it does. Who are you?"

Jack could hear laughter coming from all directions. "I am Nothing, the Guardian of Limbo."

"Limbo?"

"The state between life and death, the unknown between truth and lies. The half-truth, one might say, but I prefer to call it 'limbo:' the bent state."

"Death?"

Another spurt of childish laughter. "Yes, death."

"Why?"

"Who knows? Does it really mean that much to you?"

"Maybe it does." A sudden gust of wind blew his white hair across his face and the white-haired Guardian whipped around, trying to see the speaker. "Where are you?"

"Nowhere," wind across the mist, curling it and sending the delicate tendrils out before him, "and everywhere. Always watching and always seeing. I know everything about you: your lies, your truths, your desires, your life after life ..." another breeze, this one softer than the last: a caress instead of a hit. "... and nothing about myself."

"Can I see you?"

A sullen sigh, drawn out in exaggeration. "If you wish."

Jack leaned to the side, the mist moving to provide a ledge. "I wish."

"Then look into the face of death, Jack Frost."

* * *

"Nothing: the Guardian of Limbo" belongs to 7ShadowsUnleashed

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Please review.

BionicVampireDragonGuardian1

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Well, that was interesting to say the least. Please review ... no, honestly, please review.

\- 7ShadowsUnleashed


	5. Nothing

In Jack's mind, there was a skull: a bare, bleached-white skull. That was not what he saw, though. No, he saw long white hair, deep blue eyes, and a delicate mouth with a pair of slender fangs.

In his mind, the skull gaped, wide and unseeing. In the cold grey world, the girl before him was something very different but equally surreal.

Nothing turned away, her arms crossed over her black clothes. "Was this what you expected to see, Jack Frost?" a pause. "No, you expected something else: a cold skull, a black scythe… no one ever expects the Guardian of Limbo to be anything different from death. To them, they are dead from the moment they enter my jurisdiction, and so they are."

"Is that so?"

She turned just enough to see him from the corner of her eye. "Do you think so, Jack Frost?"

"I'd like to believe so."

.:.

North left the room when the yetis hands were stained deep red, followed by Tooth, Sandy, and Bunny, who thought he could stay for the duration of the surgery, but eventually joined the others in the hallway, cradling bandaged hand and looking from side to side with wide eyes. None of them would be the same. They looked at each other with broken eyes, then to North's left side, where there was an empty space. Then turned away from each other and each walked down a different hallway.

.:.

"Do you ever leave here?" Jack asked.

"I can if I so choose."

"Do you?"

"Depends on the reason."

"What makes a reason a good one?"

"What makes you so nosy?"

A slight laugh. "We're both Guardian's here, so what does it matter?"

"Do you give all of your secrets away? I sincerely doubt it. Secrets are meant to be kept, promises are meant to be broken, trust is meant to be betrayed, fates are meant to be sealed … everything is a closing, an end. There is no opening, Jack Frost, just the sound of your book snapping shut."

.:.

In the infirmary, Phil and his Yeti medical team worked as hard as they could to help save the teenage Guardian. Even though they had restarted his heart, that was only half of the battle: there was still the problem of closing the holes in his lungs and resetting his ribs. He turned to North, then gestured to the door, knowing that none of The Guardians should even attempt to sit through the surgery. They were already changing, their minds warping beneath the heavy experience, and he didn't want to help the process along.

Trusting his judgement, the Guardians heeded his warning and moved mutely to the door. "Bunny?" North asked, grabbing the rabbit's paws in his hands.

"No, North, one of us has to stay and it might as well be me, given I started this whole disaster."

North sighed, torn between his role as the lead guardian and his desire for intact memories: memories of Jack as the fun-loving young teen with white hair, a blue coat, and one of the most warped sticks he had ever seen. Not the blood-soaked shell on the bed.

He turned for the door. "Well be down the hall."

Phil decided that there was no time to argue with the overgrown ball of hair, so he set up for the surgery as if The Guardian of Hope wasn't there. The other members of the surgical team three Yetis unwrapped scalpels and began opening the young guardian's chest. Within seconds, the overgrown hairball was gone.

"Start by closing the wounds in his lungs." Phil ordered, his deep voice devoid of emotion. The three Yetis nodded mutely and began their work. Certain that the team knew what they were doing and wouldn't cut anything important, Phil began creating the materials needed to reconstruct the shattered ribs.

He didn't know how long he had been mixing various plasters and glues for the teenaged Guardian, but he was interrupted by the sound of a fellow Yeti clearing their throat. He turned to face them, when all they did was nod mutely. He didn't say anything, only turned back to where the sticky concoctions lay spread out on the table in little way-boats, grabbed them, and put the materials to use. Hopefully to save the youngest Guardian.

His lungs had already been drained, the numerous vats of something sticky and pink were shoved to one corner. Lines of stitches made the teen's organs look like something from a freakshow. _At least they're in one piece,_ Phil thought as he placed the last weigh boat on the cold steel. All that remained was to reset twenty-four broken ribs; the few that had survived the attack had been broken during the surgery to access his lungs.

Phil quickly went to work reassembling the shattered bones. Each rib was in at least four pieces, while some resembled shards. The one thing Phil did notice though was that the majority of the breaks occurred near his spine and his back. Almost as if he had been attacked by a tree from behind. Though, it seemed irrational, and highly unlikely, it was the only thing that would've been able to do this. That, or a building.

As soon as he was done, he quickly sewed up The young Guardian … he would have scars for sure, but he'd be alive. Though most people would consider him lucky for that.

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**Sorry for the temporary deletion of this chapter... totally my fault. Too tired.**


	6. The Unforgettable Events

Jack Frost sat bolt-upright for barely a second, pain gripping his chest like a burning whip, before he fell back into the sheets. Unfortunately, that hurt even more. He bit down on to his bottom lip to keep himself from crying out in pain and tasted blood in his mouth.

_Why do I hurt so much? Why does this … I …_ the memories came back in a single flood of images and sensations: a fight with a girl who held all of the luck in the world and clearly planned on running his dry ... a tree that sent him deep into agony ... a knife he had barely felt because he was already drifting deep into an inner world where the pain had boiled down slowly until he barely felt this world … and the girl guarding the space between life and death.

_"You have to go back, Jack Frost."_ the mysterious Guardian had whispered in his ear. Her winds tousled his hair as blew around around his shoulder, her body materialising barely an inch away from his nose. _"The old one grows restless; he cannot see you here."_

_" 'The old one' ?"_ he had whispered in reply.

_"The Man in the Moon,"_ her winds whipped again and she reappeared, this time 'laying' on the air as she peered over his left shoulder. Her face was propped on one of her fists, her hair a curtain behind her back, spreading across the air like it was a counter or table. _"He worries for those he cannot see, Jack Frost. Here, he is blind and here he worries for his little ones. I must send you back now."_

_" 'But what if I don't want to leave?' "_

_"You must."_ She stroked his shoulder with one delicate finger._ "I cannot keep you here when you are needed outside. The rogue Guardian is dangerous to everyone around her. Find her before she hurts someone else."_

Her delicate fingers traced across his chest where Jaquie Luck had driven a knife through his flesh and bone. Her touch was an icy shock, like death, pain, joy had struck his body all at once. He shuddered beneath her fingers, drawing away from her.

Then the mist exploded in a wave of cold and damp that blew outwards, ruffling his hair and gradually fading away to reveal the edge of the metal bedframe and the shadowy corners of a white-washed room.

_"I am trusting you, Jack Frost. Do what's right for everyone, not just one person. There is a world full of people, and if everyone protects their 'one person,' then no one will survive. We are Guardians, not just of children or of those we left behind, but of the whole world."_ and Nothing's sapphire eyes had faded into the thinning mist, then the mist had dissolved and he was left staring at the white ceiling of a familiar room.

Too familiar. He tried to sit up, but the pain sent him back into the bedsheets with a gasp.

_" "We are Guardians, not just of children or of those we left behind, but of the whole world." "_ Nothing had said. In order to do what was best for everyone, he was going to have kill another spirit, the spirit that almost killed him: Jaquie Luck.

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**BionicVampireDragonGuardian: Yeah! Chapter 6! Finally! Wow, that took FOREVER! The credit can't go to me, though I wrote a ****paragraph, that was later edited by my 'wonderful' co-author. Sorry the wait was so long, I had people ready to slit my throat. Chapter 7 will be up ASAP, and it will be worth any minute you have to wait after reading this chapter.** _**H**_**_opefully. _Sorry about the temporary mix up... I was WAY too tired to be left in charge of something.**

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For a short chapter, a lot actually does happen, and we get a bit more of Nothing [as in the character]. She'll be back. _* winks *_

So, that's almost everything I had to say. Please remember to review, favorite, and follow if you have not already, and we will be back with the next chapter. Sorry about the wait, and we hope to see you back.

\- 7ShadowsUnleashed


	7. Search for The Hidden

**Hey! We're back! Sorry it took so long...**

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**3rd Person POV**

After the events finished flashing in front of his arctic blue eyes, he looked around his surroundings and inspected his current state, not a Yeti or Guardian in sight in the small starch white infirmary. Tools on a nearby table, covered in blood. His blood. That thought sickened him. He wanted to dismiss it as **someone **else's, **anyone's** but his, but there was no way to deny the fuzzy red ice crystals spotting the scalpels, forceps, and fuzzy red and white cotton on the table.

The blood had frozen, as telling as a smoking gun.

His train of thought of was suddenly interrupted by a loud Aussie and Russian arguing outside the door.

"We need to go after 'er, North!" the Aussie yelled. "Look what she did to Jack!"

"Vhich is vhy ve need every Guardian." North argued. Unlike Bunny, he never needed to yell; his voice always seemed to be booming.

"You want 'im to fight 'er? Again?!" Bunny demanded, the anger in his tone noticeable through the closed door.

"Yez." North said, stern.

"North!" Bunny yelled immediately after North answered, "Think! Last time 'e fought 'er the sheila 'urt 'im so badly that '**is 'eart ****stopped!**" Jack's face blanched with shock and terror. "Or did ya forget that?"

"You think I forget?!" North yelled. Actual yelling, not his normal booming Russian bourgue. Jack cringed slightly, never having heard North actually shout. Now that he did, he wasn't sure he wanted to **ever** again.

"GUYS!" Tooth shouted over the two arguing men. They shut up almost immediately. "If you don't remember, she ran off after she fought us. How do you plan to find her?" He could barely hear the sound of sand, so he assumed Sandy was telling them something.

"Sandy make good point, ve can use Globe." North said, his volume dropping into normal … er, booming level.

"Don't you need to know 'er bloody name first?" Bunny demands. Jack's face only showed confusion. He wondered how they didn't know who she was_. How had they never ran into her before_?- _stupid question, she was the luckiest spirit, she could get away with just about anything. _

"Vhen Jack iz awake ve vill ask him." North decided. The others remained silent knowing they had no other choice.

"Are we even sure that the bloody drongo will wake up?" Bunny asked. Jack could hear Tooth gasp and choke back a sob, probably looking heartbroken and glaring daggers at Bunny for even considering the thought.

"How could you even ask **that?!**" Tooth demanded angrily. _Yes, she was definitely glaring daggers._

"Just think for a moment guys," Bunny muttered, "I want 'im to wake up as much as you do, but 'is 'eart **stopped**, not to mention that 'e 'as a **stab wound** in 'is **chest** -oi-, and let's not forget that 'is ribs were **shattered** and 'is **lungs filled with ****blood!**" Bunny was shouting by the end.

"We know, Bunny; we were **there**." Tooth says, her anger obvious. "Or did **you ****forget?**" She demanded, using the same line on Bunny that he had been using on them for the whole conversation: a fitting fitting retribution.

Jack could hear Bunny snap his jaw shut at Tooth's comment, but the guardians' conversation had paled to white noise as he tried to puzzle out the new development: how was he even conscious? If all they said was true, then, even with his all-but immortal body, Jack should not wake for another day at the minimum.

_This has to be something different … _and he had a sneaking suspicion that Nothing was the 'something different.' He then heard the infirmary door open. Bunny mumbling something that sounded like 'bloody drongo' under his breath.

"Bunny!" Tooth yelled, causing Bunny's steps to stop a few feet inside the door. Giving him the ability to see Jack, but not know if he was conscious. "Going in there isn't going to wake him up, you know that."

"I know," Bunny mumbled, yet he still walked towards Jack.

Jack wasn't sure what to do, but for some strange reason he decided he didn't want to pretend to be unconscious. That and The Guardians could help him figure out how to kill Jaquie, and how to do it without getting himself sent back to the infirmary. He knew from jolting awake after Nothing brought his consciousness back that sitting up wasn't a good idea, so he resorted to speaking from his pillow and hoping that his voice carried. Plus, he would love to give the Kangaroo a heart attack.

He barely saw Bunny out of the corner of his left eye and decided that, with his keen eyesight, the kangaroo … eh, _rabbit_ would notice soon.

It was now or never.

"Hey, look, it's the Easter Kangaroo," he mumbled.

Bunny swore and jumped back nearly three feet, putting himself firmly out of Jack's sight. Jack found himself chuckling lightly so not to hurt his already broken body. It was still painful, but The Guardian of Fun would be able to live through that pain because it felt good to have a little bit of fun again. "Jack?" He asked quietly, almost not believing it. He stepped a little closer than he was before and found himself able to see Jack's Arctic Blue eyes.

"Hey, Bunny," Jack said a little louder. Bunny's forest green eyes widened in shock, and Jack couldn't blame him.

"Jack," Bunny said, loud enough for the others to hear him. Causing Tooth, Sandy, and North to come into the infirmary. "Ya bloody drongo."

"Jack!" Two voices yelled excitedly. Along with the sound of Sandy signing something, excitedly.

"Good to see ya," Bunny said sincerely, that he wasn't going to say anything else. "Frostbite." _Or not._

"Jack," North started, causing him to turn his head towards him. "not dat ve aren't happy to zee dat you are alvight, but I think ve all vant to know **how**."

"I'm not really sure." Jack mumbled.

"Do you remember anything Jack?" Tooth asked nicely.

"The only thing I remember is…" Jack paused, internally debating on telling The Guardians. "Nothing."

"Really?" Bunny asked, sounding a little annoyed. "Ya trail off, only to tell us ya don' remember anythin'?"

"No, I mean, the only thing I remember is Nothing." Jack insisted, and continued before he could be cut off again. "She said she was 'the Spirit of Limbo.' "

"Vhat? De Spirit of Limbo?" "Are you sure?" Tooth and North asked in unison, their words melting together. They broke, sharing an embarrassed glance.

"Yeah, why?" Jack asked, confused as to why they were reacting that way.

"One, Man in Moon doesn' even have any control over wha' she does; two, everyone assumes 'at she's a myth." Bunny stated.

"I'm a myth," Jack said, annoyed with the Kangaroo.

"I mean a myth to the myths." Bunny rephrased, not realizing how much he had offended the youngest guardian. "Three, she's not exactly nice. Actually, she's a bit too clingy. I've never seen her le' someone go … withou' killin' 'em, 'at is."

"Then I am glad to be the first." Jack said cheekily. The others, however were not taking the situation as lightly as their younger component.

"How long have you been awake?" Tooth asked, sounding like a mother worrying over her only child.

"Since the kangaroo decided to start yelling." Jack admitted, knowing that he should tell the others the truth, since he **really** didn't want to hear that **ever** again.

"So you heard?" Tooth asked nervously.

"Yeah." Jack mumbled. "Meaning I also heard that you don't even know who it was that we fought."

"We're sort of assumin' 'at ya' know 'e shiela." Bunny admitted.

"I do-" Jack began, only to get cut off by North.

"Den you must know her name, no?" North asked, wanting to be that one step closer to finding the rogue spirit and punishing her.

"Yeah. Her name's Jacquie. Jacquie Luck, the spirit of Good Luck." Jack admitted. _And dealer of a lot of __**bad**_ _luck._

"Perfect!" North boomed, but not shouting. "Now ve can use de Globe to find her."

The Big Four turned to go to The Globe Room.

Jack reached to his left and had the hook of his staff around the pooka's arm before he was able to recall that, with the staff in his staff in his hand, the young Guardian's healing process would accelerate. Which explained how he was putting all his weight on his left arm, now bent a full ninety degrees further than he was willing to turn less than ten minutes prior.

"Wait."

What turned the pooka back, whether the staff or Jack's voiced concern, he wasn't sure. He did know, though, that the others wore the same horrified and shocked expression when they realized how quickly he must've turned, therefore how much stress he was putting on his broken body.

"What is it, Jack?" Tooth asked, her bright eyes wide with concern.

"Please, just give me a minute or two to heal, then **we** can find her." Jack was all-but on his hands and knees, begging.

North paused for a moment. As much as he knew he wanted to find Jaquie Luck, he also knew that Jack should be there with them, if not for moral support than as a final blow to the rogue spirit. She had tried to kill the winter sprite, but had failed, and he wanted her to know that.

"Fine, but only a few minutes."

Jack nodded, all of his energy focusing through the wooden staff clenched in his fist into his broken body. His face was tense, his eyes narrowed to point of being thin grey lines in his pale face. He closed his mouth so he wouldn't scream. When suddenly, to the surprise of the older guardians, his ice blue magic danced around his body. They knew that spirits had quick healing, but they never thought that Jack's staff, the staff he **never** let go of, could do more than conduct his powers.

They felt pretty stupid, watching the display with those thoughts playing through their minds.

It took barely a minute for Jack's magic to repair his body, and that was faster than normal.

"_Nothing, what did you do to me?" _he asked, knowing that there would be no answer.

He slid his bare feet over the left side of his bed, his feet touching the lukewarm (to him anyway) floor, and stood up, leaning on his staff, but just barely. "Told you: I just needed a minute." he said, wearing his signature smirk, though he knew it didn't penetrate the confusion probably dancing across his arctic blue eyes. Though, he then realized, that it didn't matter because The Big Four were sharing a look of shock. Tooth, ironically enough, was the first one to say anything.

"Jack, h-how did you do … that?" she asked hesitantly. Her voice lacked its usual smooth tones, instead laced with concern. The winter sprite couldn't remember a time that Tooth had stuttered or paused to find the right word.

"Do what?" he asked, confused. He was expecting a question of how he did it so quickly… the other Seasonals - that he had met, and that didn't want to tell him how to do his job, that is - could do it.

_Maybe they cannot heal themselves, _he weighted the theory. _It would make sense: Sandy was killed by Pitch during our battle._

"'Do wha'?'" Bunny mocked, then turned very serious, "How abou' heal yaself righ' in fron' o' our eyes, Frostbite?"

"I've always been able to-" he started only to cut himself off, " You can't do it, can you?"

Sandy shook his head, broadcasting a gold sand **X**.

"Oh," Jack mumbled, "I've always been able to do it, the other Seasonals and their sprites can do it too." he explained. "I just figured that you could as well." his eyes turned to the floor, his hair casting a shadow. _Great, now they'll see me as a freak._

"Nah, mate," Bunny said, placing his hand **gently **on his shoulder, "but we can worry abou' 'at later, fer now we got a Spirit to find."

The other three nodded, and Jack gave a small, slightly forced, smile and they went to the Globe Room.

* * *

When they arrived, the Yetis, one of them easily recognized as Phil, began muttering amongst themselves, shocked by the prescience of five intact Guardians.

"I- I don't… HOW?!" Phil was aghast.

North merely shook off the question, mentally reminding himself to tell the Yetis who operated on Jack how he was up and moving. There were two reasons for the decision, reason one being that he didn't want them having panic attacks for the next several months, and two being that he didn't want them thinking they were some kind of miracle workers.

That chat would have to wait, though. Instead, he walked to the Globe, and typed in a certain spirit's name. Instantly, the Globe changed. All the lights disappeared, until only one remained, a pale blue point buried somewhere in New York City. A bar of text scrolled across the bottom.

**Jaquie Luck: New York, NY, USA**

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**BionicVampireDragonGuardian1- Thanks for reading, please R&amp;R. I do actually read them. Any form of comment is allowed.**

I did not change as much of this as I thought I would, so here is your next chapter. Very overdue, I understand, but at least it is here.

Next comes the battle … I think, unless BionicVampireDragonGuardian (Shadow) changed something on me ...

\- 7ShadowsUnleashed


	8. Author's Notes

11/26/15

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Holy Shit! I am **SO**very sorry about this! It's been over TWO Months!

_I am a TERRIBLE Person!_

If I had realized it had been this long I would've been working on this more!

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Okay, so now that I have come to this revaluation, I probably- **okay, let's admit this right now, I MOST DEFINITELY- **owe you an explanation for why I have neglected this for SO LONG. Okay, so starting just after the last update I had to add Marching Band to my schedule_**(which at that point included: music lessons twice a week for an hour and 45 minute practices everyday, Tae Kwon Do three times a week and SLEEP!).**_ As School started I found myself with even less time available. Then as Marching Band drew to a close around mid October I still wasn't done yet, we had to finish off the year with a banquet. Halloween I spent in Brown Deer playing Guitar and singing at someone's party 'til 4 am. Then add in a TKD _**(Tae Kwon Do)**_ tournament the first Saturday of November _**(around this time the band started to pick and we started rehearsing for longer, and more often. Going from an hour and a half on Saturday or Sunday to twice a week for two hours. Keep in the TKD and the school and music lessons and something needed to give. {At this point I was still working on FanFics}.)**_ My parents made the 'executive' decision and took my computer. _**(Don't you DARE try to pin this on 7Shadows either, she was just as busy as I**** was.)**_Second weekend I went down to Devil's Lake _**(if you don't live in WI, it's a lake that has GREAT Rock Climbing.)**_ and I fell, giving myself a bad concussion and busting up my shoulder, and breaking 6 ribs. Because of the severity of my concussion I was limited to an hour of Tech Time a day, which I generally used doing homework. Around this time I was trying to write out the next chapter when I encountered MASSIVE writer's block. 7Shadows was GOING to work on it when her Computer crashed. _**(In all honesty I think the world hates**** us.)**_Her computer STILL doesn't work, but I can use my computer again, and I'm officially on Thanksgiving break!

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You can BS on me for all I care, but I'm not kidding here.

I'm sorry if I have made you wait two months angrily for the next chapter.

I SWEAR on my life that this chapter will be up ASAP! (That mean that it'll- probably- get changed, because I might end up posting it before 7Shadows gets her Computer fixed)

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If you EVER find me running this RIDICULUSLY late on a story you like, PM me!

_I honestly think that's why it got so bad, I got NO PMs from people! NONE! NADA! ZIP! Zero!- you get the point._

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Sorry again.** BionicVampireDragonGuardian1 (Shadow)**

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3/11/15

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HOLY SHIT! It's March and I still haven't updated!

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Good Lord, I am SO sorry!

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I **do** have an explanation, but I've decided that I won't bore the crap out of you guys with it. You want to know, PM me.

Okay, so 7Shadows and I have agreed that we are both still going to work on updating this. I repeat: WE ARE NOT ABANDONING THIS!

Hopefully, we can have it done soon. _**(By that I mean I'm hoping for BEFORE April)**_

When we FINALLY finish the next chapter I will combine the two Author's Notes into one chapter.

Hope you all aren't mad at us.

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In all honesty, I've gotten a total of **3** reviews for this story. _**(and all of them are for the first three chapters.)**_

If I start falling behind you can- **NO should** leave a review.

PLEASE! I have more people following the two stories of this series that aren't being updated anymore than I do for this one.

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7Shadows says hi, btw.

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AGAIN, so sorry.


	9. Ways to Break The Already-Broken Soul

**Chapter 8:** _**The Ways to Break an Already-Broken Soul;**_ **3rd Person POV**

From the The Empire State Building's roof, New York was a blur of colour. Bright street lights and the soft white moon lent an otherworldly feel to the city that never sleeps.

Even at the late hour, the streets were crowded with taxis, cars, and bicycles, while pedestrians swarmed the pavements like an army of minute cream ants. A giant foot and the pavement would be a nice, angry red.

The sun had long since set, and the moon was shining brightly. None of them - the people … no, the ants - noticed the figure sitting on top of a street lamp, her multicoloured braid twitching with every passing taxicab.

She clutched a tiny mirror shard in her fist, fighting to squeeze tighter and tighter until the glass shattered into a thousand tiny knives embedded in the meat of her fingers and palm. In the lamplight, the mirror glowed like a tiny piece of hope, bright and pure. Maybe hope needed to be administered directly into rotting black flesh? A slight tilt of the mirror and her mismatched eyes stared back at her: nervous yellow and a blue that reminded the broken sprite of tears.

If she cried, would her tears be blue, or would they be as black and lifeless as the broken creature they sprang from?

In her turmoil, there was one certainty: The Guardians would come for her. She had killed Jack. She knew that, where she had hit him, he was going to die, there was nothing they could do about it. There was nothing she could do about it. She had not realized that she had let her anger take control of her and turn her into something she was not until after The Guardians had retreated to The North Pole with Jack bleeding out of the floor of The Sleigh.

She knew The Guardians would kill her, and that she deserved it. When they came for her, she knew she would not have the mental fortitude to stop them. She would take any pain they dealt her, so long as Nothing was not on the other side of that pain.

Anything and everything ... Jaquie Luck could take it. Anything and everything … she just did not want to be at the mercy of the hateful Guardian of Limbo.

**_'Man in Moon cheated me once; I won't let that go unpunished.'_** Jaquie grabbed her shirt, nervously twisting the fabric between her fingers. **_'You will be mine, and then I will peel the flesh from your bones.'_**

Jaquie shook her head, trying to remove the terrible memory from the back of her eyelids where it played, warped and faded like a reel of film fed through an old projector onto a dirty sheet. It was not a threat - Nothing never made threats - but a promise. An inescapable truth waiting for her at the end of her life after death.

She watched the living, trying to focus on anything but the forthcoming moment when her existence was torn away.

Her stomach prickled, and the feeling only intensified as she The tug of where she needed to be, where someone needed Good Luck. That was why she made her 'home' here, New York City: there were always drunk teens that didn't know any better, people who needed to be arrested, needed to be helped, or stopped before something happened. It felt like she was almost always needed here.

_Do they not realize … how long … where will they be if they cannot really on their own luck? Does everyone want … to die?_

She stepped into the air, a silent good-luck angel with an internal dowsing rod, and followed the signal. The green forest was a one hundred and sixty year old memory of the ages before the great metropolis. For the sprite, it was simply the grounding wire that trapped her mind in reality.

It was in one of the parks many dark places that she found the centre of bad luck.

She saw a boy drop a bottle of vodka. It slipped from his loose, flimsy fingers and crashed to the pavement, shattering to a thousand tiny knives. He dropped to his knees, pain cutting through his drunken stupor.

"Hey, Aaron, get up," a foot connected with the boy's -_ Aaron's_ \- side and he rolled over, wincing, before slamming his hand into the pile of glass shards and pushing himself to his unsteady feet.

He was sixteen, maybe seventeen, with the lean build of a swimmer. His amber eyes showed intelligence, but it was buried behind litres of alcohol.

He glanced at each of his older companions, wary. "I don't want to do this any more," he slurred. "You've had your fun - I'm out of the meet - so let's all go home."

"But we were just going to play a game …" the oldest, who could no longer be called a teen, offered a pistol, his smile deceptively light. "Have you ever tried Russian Roulette? It's got almost as much of a rush as swimming." Again with the smile, and Aaron caved.

He took the gun and pressed it against his temple, clumsily pulling the hammer back with his thumb, and Jaquie saw it - all of it.

They had caught him outside the pool house as he walked to his car. A few tempting words and Aaron followed them all the way to Central Park, his bags stuffed in his beat-up Volkswagen three blocks away. First, they just talked, arguing over which school would win tomorrow's swim meet, but then the vodka came, and one forced drink was all it took. Two bottles, split five ways, and they had Aaron right where they wanted him: armed with a loaded six-chambered pistol, drunk out of his mind, and too dull to notice how close he was to death.

Click.

Aaron looked to the gun, confused, only to have it snatched from him by the oldest of the group, the one that had handed him the gun in the first place, looking to be about twenty-one. The young boy didn't fight him for it, as the oldest turned the gun so the barrel was facing to the ground as he inspected it. She resisted the urge to laugh as he found nothing wrong with it. That's when she saw what he planned to do next, they brought him out here (and cheated a game of luck) to kill the kid, that was all they wanted. He was willing to do it himself, if it was needed, so she placed more luck on the hammer.

The gunfire was surprisingly quite. The screams were not.

He screamed in pain and fell to the ground, holding his foot. It was that she laughed at, only to regret it seconds later when a sand whip wrapped itself around her.

As her ribs compressed, she brushed her fingers against Aaron's cheek.

His eyes gleamed as luck flooded their amber depths. As Jaquie flew through the air, she heard the tok-tok-tok of his feet on the pavement.

_'Run now, live long, Aaron Royale.'_

A ghostly smile split her face even as she struck the ground, her back arching with the pain. Whether they knew it or not, Jaquie was severely hoping not, that this was the best time for them to come after her. They had caught her at her weakest moment: when she was out of luck. Now, she was going to pay the price for doing what she was designed to do: dispensing luck to those who needed it.

Now they were going to use that against her.

She stood and immediately regretted it, falling back to her knees, her arms wrapped around her head.

_'What did he do to me?'_

She gagged, glittery sparks dancing in front of her eyes. She brushed her hand across her eyes, hoping to clear them. Blinking the last of the sparks from her vision, she forced her right hand to the ground, keeping her left pressed against her temple to dull the pain.

Even with her limited vision she didn't miss the foil in front of her.

"You brought the cavalry, didn't you, Sandman?" she scoffed, knocking the foil away with the back of her wrist. 'I so don't have time for this.'

"Ve did not bring cavalry." North's voice echoed from above her.

Jaquie only half-listened to North's explanation. _'Where is it?'_ She felt cold of metal between her fingers. _'A-ha.'_

"Kitchen knives again, eh, sheila?" the Aussie accent echoed in her scrambled mind.

"Hello, Dust Bunny," she replied.

"Dust Bunny?!" he demanded. The quiet rustle of fur on leather signalled the appearance of his boomerang.

"Don't dis my methods of torture, and I won't mock that curved board you call a weapon." she replied.

"Brat,"he spat.

"Yeah, so?" she asked, pushing herself back to sit on her heels. The blade, loosely gripped, dug tiny trenches in the dirt.

_Trenches … soldiers … hundreds dead because she did not have enough luck for all of them._

"What did you do to her, Sandy?" Bunnymund asked. "I don't even want to fight her now, she's so beat-up. Remind me never to give you first dibs on the enemy."

_'That's cold, Rabbit.'_ She looked to the Sandman, who merely shrugged, question marks and emotes flashing above his head.

"Vhat is vrong vith her?" North asked.

_'You could just ask me.'_

Jacquie pushed herself to her feet, swaying. "There's nothing 'wrong' with me!" she all-but shouted.

_'If I keep them thinking that it's all the Sandman, then that'll give me enough time to replenish my stores of luck.'_

"Keep telling yourself that, sheila." The Dust-Bunny didn't even attempt to hide his sarcasm.

_'So much for that plan.'_ She looked to the Sandman, then past him to the Tooth Fairy. She was nearly two feet off the ground and her wings like those of a hummingbird: too fast for the eye to follow.

"Feeling silent, are you not, Pixie?" she mocked.

The response was immediate and comedic: Tooth clenched her fists and let out a combination of a huff and an annoyed screech.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Tooth silenced immediately and unclenched her fists.

"Don't let 'er get to ya,' Toothy." Dust Bunny tried to comfort the pixie, but his words had little effect.

"Why are you here?" She interrupted, fearing the result of this interaction. 'Of all the things you could have said, that's what you pick?! Are you completely stupid?'

The Four stopped whatever they were doing at her question, various degrees of surprise transforming into a volatile mix of shock and hatred.

"How dare you!" Tooth screeched, rocketing at Jaquie. The enraged fairy and startled teen collided, falling to the ground in a tangle of iridescent limbs and dark fabric.

Jaquie rolled to her side, groaning, the heel of her hand pressed against her jaw. Like the rest of her body, it hurt but was not broken.

The Four watched, surprised, as her once-orange eye shifted to red, and as her indigo eye darkened to Violet, a colour so reminiscent of the pixie beside her that, were circumstances different, the Guardians would have laughed.

"What's with the eye change, sheila?" Dust Bunny mocked.

"You should've asked Frost," she snarled, reclaiming her footing. The kitchen knife was useless, an old trick. She needed something new: an attack they would not expect. Relishing the challenge, she began to formulate her plan. If today was the day she would join Nothing in the shapeless reality that was Limbo, she would take as many of these Guardians with her.

"Try and kill me," she spat. "It might be the last thing you ever do."

What would Nothing do when faced with the Guardians responsible for Jack's death, she wondered.

Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the mania bled from her eyes, replaced with a single question: "How did you find me?"

"It's not that hard, Sheila." Dust Bunny replied almost instantly, his boards never lowering, despite her lowered stance. "We just used The Globe to find The Only Psychotic- Good-Luck Spirit on the planet."

"Only Psychotic Spirit, hel no. Good-Luck, no ****." she said angrily. They looked at her confused. "So, my question is 'how did you find me' … you would usually need a name to use The Globes." Her hand clenched as realization dawned on her. "Nothing… she told you didn't she."

Silence.

"You don't need to hide it: I know she hates me. Besides, I'm pretty sure she would want me to know that she was my downfall … Are you enjoying this?!" She screamed at the sky.

"Nothing didn't tell us." The Tooth Pixie interjected.

"Whatever," she growled. "If I'm going to be tortured in Limbo, I'm taking all four of you down with me." She chuckled slightly, knowing that her words did not match her current abilities. "Who knows, maybe I'll see Frost while I-"

She was cut off as Tooth rocketed into her, the pixie's weight sending them careening into a bench seven or eight feet away. Jaquie took most of the blow, spitting a mouthful of dark saliva on the pavement. Tooth rolled to her feet and took wind, hovering over the teen like an anxious bee begging for a challenge.

This time Jaquie did not force herself to her feet. Even rolling out from under the bench sent a wave of vertigo crashing through her skull. She brought herself to a sitting position, but that was all.

"Don't you dare say that about Jack." The Tooth Pixie hissed, her anger so obvious that it seemed to be coming off of her in waves. Any other person would be scared at the fact that Tooth was actually showing anger at all. Considering her peaceful nature with (almost) everyone.

"Why should I be scared of you?" she asked. Warmth flooded her heart, a sign that her power was returning. Five minutes and the tables would turn. "The Big Four doesn't scare me."

_'Liar, tell that to your violet iris.'_

"Who ya tryin' to fool 'ere, sheila?" Dust Bunny laughed, moving to stand beside Tooth. " 'Cause it's sure not us."

"Sure," she shrugged, saying it so nonchalantly that she knew that she had thrown all four of them for a loop. "Keep telling yourselves that."

She glared at North for a moment, then at the Sandman. Judging by North's unease with her glare, she was expecting something similar from the man made of sand. However, he seemed to be the only one who wasn't afraid of her. They held their stares for a moment, trying to see who would look away first. Shockingly enough, it was the Sandman, all of his shock and disappointment written in that one fleeting glance.

She knew that there was no way that he had ever known her, so how could he possibly have the right to look at her like that? Normally, she would've been mad that he even dared to look at her like that, but for some reason it didn't, she wasn't sure how she felt but for some reason she wasn't mad. Instead, the look held one message: despite the fact that she had held the gaze longer, she had lost.

Only, the Sandman was wrong, astronomically so.

She felt warm, warmer than she had in a long time, and The Guardians were going to lose.

It had been begun with the fall of ice.

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Hey! We're Back! Yeah!

And we're not dead.

Woo Hoo!

Please, please, PLEASE review.

**BionicVampireDragonGuardian1**

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This chapter is long overdue, everyone. It has been revised numerous times, and I dare-say you probably like this version better than you would have liked the first version ... or the second ... or the third ... in fact, you probably like this chapter more than you would have liked any of the chapters-pretending-to-be-chapters. Thank you for reading our **latest** [emphasis on 'late'] installment and **please** review. I never know what anyone thinks of our story because I cannot read the personal messages sent to A M. Reviews are lovely, favourites are lovely, and follows are also lovely. Everyone who has done at least one of these things is greatly appreciated.

Also, please stop sending death threats to A M. I am usually the one whose schedule does not allow much time for proofreading. It's not her fault if I am slow. Please badger before you badger A M.

_**\- 7ShadowsUnleashed**_


	10. AUTHOR'S NOTE, IMPORTANT PLZ READ!

Hey, guys, I know it's been forever since you've heard from me or 7Shadows. I wish I could say that I come bearing a kickass chapter, but I don't and I'm sorry. But as of now I'm putting this on a Hiatus, because not only do I have other things I've need to work on, I really don't know where to go with this, especially since Shadows and I haven't talked in almost a year.

If you have input of any kind PM me.

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Hey guys! So, I know I said it was going on Hiatus, but you know what, I don't listen to myself 99.999% of the time, so if you could just do yourself a favor and ignore what's up above, give me till the 31st and I will have a chapter update.

This one will be done on my own with 7Shadows, so I apologize ahead of time for the crappy grammar and you will definitely be able to tell what she and I worked on together and where we abandoned it for a while. Then I came and put the above on and I couldn't help but look at it and be like, damn, it feels wrong leaving it like this... so I'm not. By the 31st I should have chapter nine ready to be posted. Thanks for all of you who stuck with this and I won't leave this to sit for another year, I promise.

Thanks again, and see you soon,

BVDG1


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